If you benefit and learn from the FDP and enjoy our site, please help support us and become a Contributing Member or make a Donation today! The FDP counts on YOU to help keep the site going with an annual contribution. It's quick and easy with PayPal. Please do it TODAY!

I realized lately that every time I had wired a HB with a switch to split coils it sounded rather thin and bright and be mostly unusable. I would always wire the switch to send the mid wire to ground. Well that makes the bridge-side coil go live (at least for Seymour Duncans). I have been testing mostly with strat-size HBs like hot-rails and such and had assumed that since both coils are so close that they must sound almost identical.
I decided to try sending the mid-wire to the live side instead, making the neck side coil go live. What a pleasant surprise, it is reasonably less bright and much more usable ! Just thought I should mention it :)

Another possible wiring is to put a capacitor between the coil cut wire and ground. This maintains the single coil highs (and mids depending on the size of the cap) but the low end of the humbucker. The size of the cap will determine how much of the highs and mids are cut from the cut coil. .01uf to .1uF...experimentation will be needed.

This also lessens the volume drop when switching to the modified coil cut/single coil tone.

I only use full size hb and I use switch to choose the north, south or hb. I love the sound. I particularly like the warmth and glassy sound of some of the hb.
You have to be very careful that not all hb sound good split. I wasted a lot of money to find one. Now I am using Dimarzio Breed DP165 in neck and Tone Zone in bridge.

Something else to consider when picking a Humbucker for splitting is the OHMS.
A desirable single coil pickup ranges from 4 ohms to 8 ohms. A humbucker split, should not drop below 4 ohms for each coil. That means the advertised series ohms of the humbucker should be 8 ohms or greater to avoid severe volume output loss.
A vintage 5 ohm humbucker split to 2.5 ohms would not be very pleasing.

When ever I split a humbucker I always use a 250k pot to variably split it. It is nice being able to dial in that just perfect sound.
Strats realisticaly only need one tone pot. The second tone pot can be used for more useful purposes.

Oh yes, as suggested above, capacitors can be very useful in splitting humbuckers and on volume controls. One of the kits in the attached link can help clean up a variable split pickup. A nice clean(noiseless)single coil sound can be achieved by dialing in a tweek of the second coil. If you want more treble, use a .022uf capacitor. See link

The kit is installed parallel across the two terminals of the pot. It can also be installed in series with an on off switch.

To get hum cancelling in #2 and #4 is easy on hb, you match the polarity of the coil that you used split and make sure it is opposite to the mid pup. Then wire so in #2 and #4, you split the coil and you'll get full hum cancelling. I have individual switch for neck and bridge to get north, south coil and hb. One of the coil of the hb will cancel hum in #2 and #4 position.

Moderators: Chris GreeneIron Manreverendrob
FDP, LLC Privacy Policy: Your real name, username, and email
are held in
confidence and not disclosed to any third parties, sold, or used for
anything other than FDP Forum registration unless you specifically
authorize disclosure.